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  1. Health & Medicine

    High salt intake hikes stroke risk

    People who consume a lot of salt are nearly twice as likely to have a stroke as are people who consume less salt, even when their blood pressures are equivalent.

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  2. Health & Medicine

    Vampire spit gives strokes a licking

    A drug derived from a component of vampire bat saliva can clear blood clots in the brains of people who have had strokes.

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  3. Lefties, righties take neural sides in perceiving parts

    A brain-imaging study indicates that right-handers and left-handers use different, corresponding neural regions to perceive parts of an object while ignoring the larger entity.

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  4. 19517

    This article overlooks an immeasurable long-term cost of whole-body computed tomography scans: the potential cancers induced by high-dose radiation. Aggressive marketing of CT scans without full disclosure of the risk is unethical and should be illegal. Nancy EvansSan Francisco, Calif.

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  5. Humans

    High costs of CT screening

    Whole-body computed tomography scans for asymptomatic disease do not appear cost-effective at this time.

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  6. Earth

    Subway air does extra damage

    Airborne particles in subterranean transit stations may be more damaging to human cells than are particles from street-level air.

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  7. Planetary Science

    Meteorite on Mars

    One of the twin rovers on Mars has discovered the first meteorite ever found on a planet other than Earth.

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  8. Humans

    Letters from the February 12, 2005, issue of Science News

    Short end of the chromosome Since “women with chronically ill children generally reported more stress” and since “there was a very striking connection between stress and telomere length” (“Stressed to Death: Mental tension ages cells,” SN: 12/4/04, p. 355), isn’t it probable that there is a strong connection between telomere length and becoming the parent […]

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  9. Humans

    From the February 9, 1935, issue

    A new type of sailboat, the most distant nebula, and germs on drinking glasses.

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  10. Humans

    Whys Up

    The University of Wisconsin created the “The Why Files” to explain the science behind news headlines. The stories are timely and written for a broad audience of children and adults. Recent topics include snowmobile use in national parks, tsunamis, climate change, and ice in Antarctica. The articles are classified according to educational standards for grades […]

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  11. 19516

    When I read of the Hubble Space Telescope–repair controversy (“People, Not Robots: Panel favors shuttle mission to Hubble,” SN: 12/18&25/04, p. 388; and this article), this question comes to mind: Why can’t an unmanned, powered vehicle latch on to Hubble and fly it to the International Space Station, where it could be repaired by the […]

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  12. Humans

    Lean Times: Proposed budget keeps science spending slim

    After accounting for inflation, President Bush's proposed research-and-development budget for fiscal year 2006 is down 1.4 percent from FY 2005, a figure that has many science agencies tightening their belts.

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